Best rant on PC I have seen for awhile...long, but worth it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day.

But then, the older lady went on to explain:
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled,
so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.
We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing."
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.
And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

Seen on Facebook

[KatyMan]

1. But they voted for Nixon

And Reagan and Bush. And had those little lantern holder black guys on their lawn. And women could only have bank accounts in their husband's name. And didn't work. Or have access to birth control. Water fountains and buses and hotels etc were segregated. Lynching was fairly common. Lead pipes. Asbestos. It really wasn't the Beaver Cleaver world the post makes it out to be. And landfills didn't fill up overnight, nor did climate change happen all of the sudden. Hell, Exxon knew about it 40 years ago. This is Thomas Kincaid in a Facebook post.

[Egnever]

10. "those little lantern holder black guys"

Interestingly enough...

https://web.archive.org/web/20110206152939/http://www1.phillyburbs.com/undergroundrailroad/signals.shtml

The black "lawn jockey". Today considered a sign of poor lawn decoration at best, and overt racism at worst, the lawn jockey was an important signal on the road to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

It is ironic that this statue, commissioned and made popular by slave owning Washington, would eventually become a beacon for freedom for runaway slaves.

With spies and bounty hunters everywhere, even safe houses were not always safe. It became necessary to be able to convey, in a low-key fashion, what condition any Underground Railroad stop was in at any given time. The answer was the 'lawn jockey', painted to wear a red cap.

If a safe house was 'safe', and prepared to accept visitors, a lantern or an American flag would be placed in the forward reaching hand. If the house was under scrutiny or compromised, the lantern or flag would be removed, signaling the travelers to move to another house down the line. Further south, along the Mississippi, green and red ribbons tied to the statues arm - whether clandestinely or with the owner's knowledge - attested to the status of the owners of the house: red ribbons alerting danger, green ribbon announcing safety.

[mountain grammy]

15. Fascinating

And thanks for the link.

[pinboy3niner]

68. Snopes: Unproven

http://www.snopes.com/jocko-lawn-jockey-racist/

[spooky3]

69. Thanks. One question I had about the story was

wouldn't any color or other signal to those escaping quickly be figured out by authorities, so that the signal would have just the opposite effect?

[malthaussen]

82. The story may reflect a temporary or local expedient...

... and been blown up to greater proportions. One would assume that the situation was in considerable flux.

-- Mal

[cheapdate]

158. The story represents how human beings generally lived for millennia

prior to the "age of oil" and the incredible expectation of unlimited power on demand at the flip of a switch. If anything, our present way of life may yet prove to be the more temporary.

[JDPriestly]

14. No. It wasn't an ideal world, but we did our own work and walked

(I still do) and did not use nearly the energy we use today.

There was less justice on social issues like gay marriage, but we were making more progress on economic issues like the minimum wage.

So it was a mixed bag then and a mixed bag now.

One thing is certain, we need to do a lot better today than we are when it comes to saving our environment.

The OP is describing the 1950s and maybe 1960s. We really did live like that.

[Dustlawyer]

33. It was nice to be reminded of at least a simpler, slower time. The pace today is too hectic!

I can remember me and my friends would spend summer mornings picking up Coke bottles and getting a nickel a piece. You could buy stuff with one nickel back then. We did cover our books with paper grocery bags and mowed, edged, and swept a yard for 5 bucks. Gas was 30 cents a gallon.

People hard jobs they worked their whole life and were able to afford a comfortable retirement on pensions and SS.

Black people were discriminated against openly, then it became closeted, now openly again! So we're gays and other minorities. It was not perfect, but the fishing was much better!

[dixiegrrrrl]

93. I baby sat for 25 cents an hour...late 1950's.

You had to be at least 12 to babysit.
And you were expected to clean the kitchen.

In the summer, for 6 weeks, the berry farmers would have buses, like school buses, at the local Safeway at 6 am, anyone 12 and older was driven to the strawberry fields, where you picked berries till 2-3 in the afternoon, at 1.00 a flat. I think a flat held 8 of those green baskets you buy at the store.
Every flat got a ticket punch on a card you had, when full you turned the ticket in for 15.00. That would take several days to do.

no taxes, no forms, and mostly always kids picked, a few grownups. Bus drove you back to the drop off point at the store.

That was my money for school clothes in the fall, and it never seemed unusual to have to buy my own clothes.

[Hortensis]

36. We bought our kids clothes they could wear while they

grew into them and then wear until they were too small, and we mended them and saved them for the younger kids or passed them to friends whose kids were the right size.

We made our own Halloween costumes out of stuff around the house.

We sanded and painted our kitchen cabinets instead of sending them to landfills -- and were thrilled with the results of our industry and creativity. (I feel sorry for the people today who can't do that kind of thing and end up with all these cabinet-brochure kitchens.)

I could go on forever with this stuff.

[dixiegrrrrl]

56. I am a Goodwill type store junkie, and have found some incredible bargains.

When I lived in areas of the West Coast that had wealthier enclaves, I could find cashmere sweaters for 2.00, and fine furniture for 1/10th the price of buying new.
In fact, I used to have once a year yard sales when I made back all the money I had spent plus a hefty profit.
Half of what is in my house now is from good thrift shopping, no one is the wiser.

Then I moved to the rural South.
ZERO good finds in thrift stores, and yard sales are mostly very old clothes no one would want.

Which says a lot for real thrifty down here. People hold onto and pass down anything that is worth using.

Small town and country people consider "re-cycle" what we used to call "passing on" to others, like with baby clothes.

[ffr]

114. I appaud both for doing their part - better than most.

I'm one of those who prides myself at not leaving my mark anywhere. In my neighborhood, for instance, my home uses between 1/3 to 1/4 the energy of equivalent homes in my area, according to my power company.

The lights I use in my home are the ones in the room I'm in. Ceiling & whole-house fans rule during the summer. My energy company allows me to pay more to force them (thanks to Harry Reid) to use 100% renewables for all my electrical energy consumption. My rate is variable, so I do laundry on weekends. All lights, less the oven, are either fluorescent or LED.

Republicans ridicule me for being so stingy and I where that label with pride. It's less about stingy and more about leaving no trace.

You're right. Collectively, we need to do more.

[bvar22]

31. No. The generation the woman is talking about...

...voted for Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and LBJ, who despite the WAR, enacted very liberal legislation...
a package called "The Great Society", the very successful War on Poverty, Medicare/Medicaid, and the Civil Rights Act. (arguably, the last Liberal President of the Democratic Party).


Yes. That IS Dr Martin Luther King looking over LBJ's shoulder as he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.


I know, because I am a member of that generation.
One of the ways we made pocket money as kids was collecting pop bottles at construction sites and returning them for the deposit.
I never saw a plastic shopping bag until I was in my late 20s.

Things weren't perfect, but we were moving in the right direction.
Today, we are moving the wrong way.

[Boomerproud]

40. Your last point is well taken and so true.

Wrongs WERE being righted, at least addressed. Today either the general populace doesn't care or has given into anger (usually misdirected).

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. Who is "they"? that voted ?????

Cause I was a kid growing up in the 50's, and our parents and grandparents were solidly Dems.
Most of the state of Washington was Dem, come to think of it.

And much of what the post said was the way we lived, in small towns and rural areas, back then.

[shanti]

46. yup

my dad was a washingtonian, and he and his family always voted dem. even after moving to orange county, ca, (home of the john birchers), and then to arizona, he was dem until he died. i remember him crying (the only time i ever saw that) when jfk died.

[whathehell]

99. Not this "old person"

I'm 66 and wouldn't dream of voting for any of those Repukes, and neither would anyone I know, either now or then.

[SylviaD]

111. Lynchings were never "common". Certainly not in the grandmother's lifetime.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/lynching.aspx

[braddy]

146. Even the under 30 year olds voted for Nixon in 1972.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. hmmmm... that must be a very old lady indeed.

Her "back then" seems to have stopped at around 1959.

For example:
"Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus" - we've been a dominant automobile culture since the late 50's.
"We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen" - BIC ended that shit around 1959.
"Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn" - well again not unless "back then" ends around 1959.
"We exercised by working" - or perhaps 1859.
"Back then we washed the baby's diapers" - pampers, 1961.
"We had one electrical outlet in a room" - not in houses built after WWII.

Typical facebook horseshit story.

[arcane1]

5. Yep, long before the "tattooed, multiple pierced smartass" people came along.

Indeed, it was that fictitious old lady's generation who ended all of that stuff with modern "conveniences".

[chowder66]

12. I was using a push mower in 1980

so were others in our neighborhood. They were great and did a good job but everyone started buying power lawn mowers and those of us that had push mowers caved.
I took the bus and walked from '72 to 97', tapering off walking but I still walk my neighborhood even though I have a car. Our streetcar did shut down in 1957 but they have brought it back!
We bought bic pen refills and changed them out probably up to around 1980 and possibly beyond.
Most of my jobs were physical up to 1997 so yes, that was my exercise as was/is walking, I was walking to and from work or to the bus stop depending if I was running late or not.
My nephews were in cloth diapers in '84, as was I in '66. Granted, my nephews were living in Holland.
Though we had more than one electrical outlet in many rooms there were a couple that only had one (bathrooms) and we
didn't have power strips to plug multiple items into.


I get the point from both the meme and your comments. It's important to keep figuring this out and doing what we can where we can as there is nothing wrong in pointing out that efforts have been made by people for decades and that we have come to dispose of things or replace things that are maybe not actually necessary.

[Dont call me Shirley]

121. Used a push mower 60s, 70's & 80's, wish i still had it, well made tool!

[chowder66]

163. : ) Push mowers unite!!!! Thanks for that! eom

[JDPriestly]

16. Yes. I lived "back then." Depended on your economic status

whether you started wasting electricity in the 1950s or 1960s.

I am sitting in a living room with three electrical outlets, but our bedrooms have two. We put some of them in during the early 1990s. Old houses have very few electrical outlets. My kitchen only has one. My house was built before all the electric gadgetry was popular.

Kind of an interesting view on history.

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. I had 2 kids late 60's......cloth diapers for them both.

Where I lived, the affordable houses were all built pre-WW2... in fact, the house I lived in when my kids were little was a 1906 cottage. Did not know it was so old at the time, since the wiring had been updated.

[Dont call me Shirley]

120. All 5 of my brothers and sisters were raised on cloth diapers 1954-1966.

[laundry_queen]

144. My grandmother cloth diapered her 8 kids from 1946-1960

I was born in 1975 and was cloth diapered. My brother was born in '78 and he had pampers.

I have 4 kids and the first 2 were cloth diapered and second 2 were not (I tried with #3 but she had really horrid rash issues that only disposables cured. We really tried every washing regime online and prescription bum cream and nothing worked. Her doctor recommended disposables. Then with baby #4 we had a crappy washing machine and similar rashes and I gave up the cloth dream. I loved cloth diapering).

[phylny]

184. We used cloth diapers from 1985 - 1994.

It was during a time when you could still survive with a single earner, so I stayed home with our children while my husband worked until 2000. We had to save money every way possible, and this was one of them.

One of the perks of using cloth diapers, too, is that all three of our girls were toilet trained by age 2. That wet diaper doesn't feel so great after a while

[zeemike]

37. Well I am old enough to remember all of those things.

And I know that in 1959 in Seattle I took the street car every day and it was electric and one came by the corner every 15 minutes. I believe if I remember right it cost 15 cents.

I grew up in that time where the milk man delivered milk and dairy products to the door in bottles and paper bags were used just as described...including book covers. I earned enough to go to the Saturday afternoon matinee by returning pop bottles to the store for a refund.
And kids had bikes and rode them everywhere all over town.

So yes it makes me old...but not everything in the past was a bad idea.

[nadinbrzezinski]

55. Oh that one has been in circulation for years

We didn't have the green thing back then, why it gets recycled every three months on my feed



And that is a true story by the way. I add people all the time. So I expect to seeing every so often

[Fla Dem]

66. Her back then, was her back then.

The older lady is probably older than me, but as a child of the 60's, many of what she remembers (fictional person or not) is what was reality in my life.

We returned bottles.
Milk came in bottles that the "milk man" collected on his deliveries.
We used paper bags until the at least the '80s
Water bottles are a fairly new phenomenon. Again, probably in late '80s-early '90s.
Disposable diapers didn't have widespread use until mid to late 60's.
Although we weren't using fountain pens, many of the pens I used in school had replaceable ink cartridges.
I walked to school all the way through high school. It was rare for for a high school kid to have a car. Most middle class families only had one car when I was growing up and that was for the Dad to get to work.
We only had one TV my whole life at home for a family of 6.
We did use public transportation to get to and from school and work. I walked to the train station, rode the B&M train into Boston, then took the subway to get to my final destination..

The whole point of the post was to point out how things have changed and not necessarily for the better in terms of the environment.

Yes we had gas guzzling cars that emitted pollution. Coal was for a long time the major fuel to heat most homes. Recycling wasn't even on the radar, except that we reused anything that could be reused for it's original purpose or other purpose. We weren't a throw away society.

No generation is perfect, we keep evolving. But sometimes that evolution creates more problems than it eliminates.

[dixiegrrrrl]

88. "We only had one TV my whole life at home for a family of 6."

And we kids were the remote!
The parents plopped on the couch, we sat where ever, when we were under 10 we sprawled on the floor or rug, and got up to change the channel
( we had THREE channels then, over the air) when the parents said to.
The news channel was always CBS...Walter Cronkite.

I have an 18" x 18" thick wood piece of wood that has a scene of a Dutch girl painted on it.
On the back it has my Grandfather's name, and the date...1906.
It hangs on teh wall, at an angle, with long wires, and Granma used it to hold her folded up paper bags, in the kitchen.

[mwooldri]

130. And how long were those three channels on air for?

This was very familiar on UK TV in the 70s and early 80s. I've posted a re-created BBC Two startup but the test card and its music was on... frequently.

BBC TV often featured "Pages from Ceefax" - Ceefax was a teletext service with news, weather, TV listings, recipes, discussions and more. To fill some air time, they often broadcast the teletext service with background music. Here's a re-creation with pages from May 2008. The 6 minute mark has some topical news relevant to 2016 (Obama, Clinton)

Sometimes 40 feels old, sometimes not.

[dixiegrrrrl]

136. To the best of my recollection, in our area of the Pac. NW

We had 3 channels all thru the '50s and into early '60s.
It was basically Abc, NBC and CBS
PBS came in somewhere in the early 60's.

[mwooldri]

150. Different years...

50s and 60s were 2-3 channel lands in USA. For Europe this was the case well into the 80s and even 1990s. Bhutan... 0 channels until 1999.

[dixiegrrrrl]

161. Slow me, I finally figured out what you were asking, I think.

Test patterns!

Early 50's.....I think they went off the air around 10 pm, then slowly that stretched to midnight, but I remember it was a big argument about having tv on past midnight.
Then came back at 7 am, at least my memory was waiting till then for the Saturday morning kids's shows, as the parents slept in.

Tv closed down at night with the National Anthem, and some people actually stood up while it played.
We were a patriotic bunch back in those days. I still remember Pledge of Allegiance at school, grades 1-6.

[DLCWIdem]

156. one t.v. in the 80's

We had 1 t.v which me and my sister fought over (the channel). My stepdad got angry cut the cord and we did without t.v. for a week. We were respectful and he fixed the cord himself when our time was up.

[Act_of_Reparation]

97. Let's be honest, here:

We returned bottles.

We return bottles now. I'm 33 years old, and I been returning bottles (either directly myself or indirectly through my parents) for as long as I can remember.

Milk came in bottles that the "milk man" collected on his deliveries.

This is hardly a generational triumph. These bottles were reused because someone came to your house to retrieve them, and only for as long as it remained cost-effective to do so. This procedure ceased when refrigerated shipping allowed for consolidation of the dairy industry and the pricing out of local delivery services.

Incidentally, the millennials didn't do this. It was the CEO's of the big dairy chains. You know, old people. The same old people we are to believe are eco warriors for indirectly "returning" their milk bottles.

We used paper bags until the at least the '80s

Same story as above. The decision to change from paper to plastic bags was made by people of power. Unless tattooed and pierced smart ass kids from the future took their flying DeLorean back to 1980-something, we can safely assume those selfsame old folks who decided plastic milk bottles were cheaper than glass also decided that plastic bags were cheaper than paper.

Water bottles are a fairly new phenomenon. Again, probably in late '80s-early '90s.

Not many teens and young adults today owned water bottling companies in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I think this another mistake we can safely pin on the Boomers.

Disposable diapers didn't have widespread use until mid to late 60's.

See above.

Although we weren't using fountain pens, many of the pens I used in school had replaceable ink cartridges.

See above.

I walked to school all the way through high school. It was rare for for a high school kid to have a car. Most middle class families only had one car when I was growing up and that was for the Dad to get to work.

Who decided to move their families into McMansions in the suburbs? Young people?

We only had one TV my whole life at home for a family of 6.

Was concern for the environment the limiting factor there, or was it the cost of a television?

We did use public transportation to get to and from school and work. I walked to the train station, rode the B&M train into Boston, then took the subway to get to my final destination..

And people are still doing that, if they live close enough to do it.

The whole point of the post was to point out how things have changed and not necessarily for the better in terms of the environment.

And here's our biggest source of disagreement: that's not what the story is about.

Not even a little.

The story is about millennials -- tattooed, pierced, and smart-assed, as all millennials are. The author doesn't like millennials because millennials are comfortable in a world he or she finds increasingly unfamiliar. That pisses them off, so they've brewed up some half-cocked justification for feeling their own generation superior to those that will succeed them. Which is funny, because, as I've noted, millennials don't have any power. They didn't decide to start using plastics, or moving to the suburbs, or any of that stupid shit mentioned in the article. That shit's on the author and their generation.

If you're an adult and don't like the way things are, you might want to take a look your generation's aggregate contribution to society instead of railing full-tilt against young people.

And if I sound upset, it because this shit is profoundly insulting.

[Dont call me Shirley]

122. The story is NOT about insulting millenials! It's about how we used to live the green walk! My

millenial kids have REFUSED to learn any of this from me! Choosing the lazy path all the way!

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

[Act_of_Reparation]

132. No, and no.

The story is NOT about insulting millenials!

Of course it is. From the snide comments about the cashier's presumed inability to perform mental arithmatic to their tattoos and piercings, every fucking sentence drips with the selfsame grumpy-old-man condescension milennials hear day in and day out from the selfsame aging curmudgeons so visibly shaken by their own anachronism.

It's about how we used to live the green walk!

And I just demonstrated that you never "walked the green walk". Not that I needed to, of course. If you and your parents had actually walked the green walk, the environment would not be in its present state.

Oh, right. Rivers on fire, holes in the ozone layer, decades' accumulation of atmospheric carbon.. that's all milennials' fault.

My millenial kids have REFUSED to learn any of this from me! Choosing the lazy path all the way!

It might surprise you to learn your kids' laziness might be entirely unrelated to their generation.

[Dont call me Shirley]

135. You're the one doing the blame shifting. The real cause of environmental degradation is the

billionaire industrialist capitalists, period! They cannot and will not stop their addiction to rape and pillage! And frankly we greatest gen, boomers, genxers, millenials do not know how to stop them. We do not know how to create a new system. And even when we do try, we get beaten down by the .01% Bully's thugs.

Divide and Conquer the generations is such an old .01% evil game meant to tear families and communities apart. Don't fall for that shit!

[thucythucy]

133. The point could have been made

without the condescending tone towards millennials.

The fact is by and large our culture has evolved to become a more disposable and carbon spewing society. While there has been a huge increase, I think, over the past fifty years in our awareness of what all this is doing to the environment, the environment today is far more degraded than it was fifty and certainly a hundred years ago, to the point where we're now facing a world wide crisis in the form of global warming.

But I can't see this as the fault of any particular generation, and trying to pit one generation against another is crass and counterproductive.

Anyway, thanks for your post on this.

[sinkingfeeling]

67. My son was born in 1970 and never had anything except cloth diapers. I rode a city

bus to work until I left Columbus, Ohio in 1977. I did return bottles up to the 1980s. Get real.

[spooky3]

70. You make a good point but we used ink cartridges

Last edited Fri May 6, 2016, 11:34 AM - Edit history (1)

Up through the 70s.

And no surprise--Amazon sells them today:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=fountain+pen+refill+cartridges&tag=geminimobiles-20&index=office-products&hvadid=29868011215&hvqmt=b&hvbmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_8vkg7elkrr_b

Obviously a lot fewer are sold today than pre-throwaway pens.

[flor-de-jasmim]

72. Just because things were invented in a year does not mean they came into general use then.

[MadCrow]

91. Guess I must be a very old lady

Because I was born in 1940. and I remember all of these things. We had one car, which my Dad used to drive to work, therefore if my Mom and I wanted to go somewhere during the day we either walked or relied on public transportation. I always walked to school. I used cloth diapers for my kids because I couldn't afford Pampers . I washed my clothes with a wringer washer and hung them on the line to dry. My kids wore hand -me- downs and were glad to get them. If their jeans had a hole in the knee I patched it. If the pants got too holey they went in the rag bag.

One of my first memories is seeing my Mom crying. It was April 12, 1945 and she had just heard on the radio that FDR had died. I also remember V-J Day (victory in Japan). The people on my street were setting off- fireworks, blowing the horns on their cars and just plain thrilled that the war was over. My parents gave me a wooden spoon and metal pot lid and told me I could make all the noise I wanted.

I can also remember the election of 1948- Truman vs Dewey. My parents were ardent Republicans and were convinced that Dewey would win, but I, with my eight-year old wisdom, insisted it would be Truman. I was so proud to have been right.

Things were simpler then, and I believe my children were fortunate to have been born in the 60's. We lived in the country, even had a multi-family party line instead of a cell phone. They got to play outside in the fresh air, make up their own games, and have a sense of freedom. They were taught self-reliance and weren't monitored every single minute of the day. Luckily they all survived and I think they are stronger for the experience.

I agree we have made great social and economic progress in the ensuing years, but I am fearful that many of the gains we have made are slowly being eroded away.

[cyberswede]

92. Our household was like that in the 1970s

We walked or rode bikes everywhere. We did have a city bus to go downtown. Our 10-person family had 2 cars (for dad & the kids who could drive). My mom didn't learn to drive until the mid 1980s.

My mom used cloth diapers for all the kids in my family (probably till about 1970ish).

We wore hand-me-down clothes (many home-made in the first place). I got my first pair of new denim jeans in 6th grade (1977).

My mom always stirred & mixed everything by hand in the kitchen. We did have a blender - great for milkshakes.

We had one tv - and didn't get a color tv until after 1980.

Everyone in my school used brown paper bags to make book covers - they were personalized and really cool. I may even still have one or two in my attic with my old school stuff.

As for a "horseshit story" - I read it as more generalizing about how things were done, not a literal description of how it was for everyone.

[No Vested Interest]

101. Pampers not in general use until late 60's at the earliest.

My babies, born 1961-1966, wore cloth diapers which I washed and folded while watching them and TV.
We worked for the manufacturer of Pampers - P&G- and I tested paper diapers in '67 & '68 for the company. (We had to weigh the soiled diaper.)

I do remember a lot of extension cords, but did not lack outlets in a given room.

[passiveporcupine]

118. How factual it was, wasn't really the point.

[Warren Stupidity]

123. Think about it.

Assume the alleged person is in her 80's.
She's in her 20s in the 50's.
She's in her 40s in the 70's.

Our disposable culture she's lecturing a freaking millennial about was going full bore in the 60s and 70s and got going in the 50s as the post war era picked up steam.

Millennials inherited this mess. From her generation and the boomers.

[DLCWIdem]

152. 2016

Hell I still take the bus and rode a bike till acouple of years ago.

[abelenkpe]

3. This has gone around the internet for years

It's BS. But keeps getting recycled. Some enjoy a nice bashing of the younger generation though.

[JDPriestly]

17. I don't think it is bashing. It is just remembering.

We also had to pay a lot for long distance calls. Today people save a lot because they can use conference calling and the internet to do things we had to go to meetings or the bank to do.

It's just different.

We used an awful lot of paper back then.

[abelenkpe]

47. My mom used to bring home computer paper

Y'know the kind that was perforated and went on and on forever if you didn't rip the pages apart? Kid coloring heaven 🙂
Reminiscing is always fun. Just think it's better when it doesn't pit generations against one another.

Recently watched Close Encounters with my kids. They didn't understand why the phones had cords.

[LiberalElite]

29. Considering the bashing that Boomers get - if this makes us "even" in the

generational wars, GOOD!

[abelenkpe]

44. Boomers don't deserve bashing either

I'm gen X. Boomers get a bad rap. Have much respect for them. But I like Millenials too. They're well educated, work hard, have few opportunities.
Now my parents generation.... I kid!

[LiberalElite]

52. but we do get bashed - including on DU -

I have no beef with younger people. I'm encouraged that they're not spooked by the Red Scare "Socialism bad" baloney of the 1950s.

But when I read this Boomers ruined America crap - Goddamn it a lot of us are as screwed as you all are. For example, the shift from employer-provided pensions to 401Ks started when I was in my 40's. We were raised with the belief that we could depend on having an adequate pension. The switch occured too late for a lot of Boomers to adjust. My employer froze the pension fund 10 years ago. That means a shortfall of several hundred dollars a month in my retirement. If my job lasts - I'm probably working till 70.

But according to some, we're all affluent and we got ours... it ain't necessarily so.

[malthaussen]

84. Arguably, the Greatest Generation "ruined" America...

... but try floating that one and see where it gets you. But consider that the consumerism and the disposable society were both invented by the generation that fought and won WWII. Reactionary RW politics, Red Scares, and the John Birch Society were all inventions of theirs. (So, obviously, were the Great Society and innumerable progressive changes). Mr Nixon was a child of that generation (although Mr Reagan was even older), so were many of the most evil members of government since he became President.

It is bootless to accuse one generation of "ruining" the country, as each of us in our own way make life heaven or hell.

-- Mal

[phylny]

185. I agree with you, and I cannot stand

calling them "The Greatest Generation."

[Duppers]

61. +10

Thanks.

Our boomer generation began the big changes. Still, depending on where you lived, there were too many looking down their stuffy noses at us progressives.

[malthaussen]

85. I beg to differ...

... the Boomer generation didn't "begin the big changes," our parents did. We were the ones who derived first benefit from them.

-- Mal

[dixiegrrrrl]

95. We have generation wars?????????

I had no idea.
But, being a pacifist , I may not have noticed.

[Enrique]

62. what do you have against recycling?

[snooper2]

75. Yep, look how fucking GREEN everyone was back in the good ol' days during segregation!

Those were the good ol' times right!

[malthaussen]

86. Reminds me of Pittsburgh in the late '50s and early '60s.

It's much nicer now.

-- Mal

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. I have a feeling.....

This is an Ann Landers or Dear Abby column from the 1990's

[tymorial]

9. That is possible

It also reads like an email forward from the late 90s.... something that my father in law still loves to do lol

[LoverOfLiberty]

23. Forward this to

/r/forwardsfromgrandma

[Tommy_Carcetti]

28. Which means it was directed towards us Gen Xers

...who are now directing their righteous indignation towards Millenials, who I'm sure in 20 years will be lecturing the youth about their good old days.

[abelenkpe]

48. Good gravity no

Do you remember Neon?

😔
Never again....

[Beartracks]

53. The longer this makes the rounds...

... the younger the presumed cashier seems to get, while the description of the "good old days" remains the same. By now, the old lady customer probably has least three whippersnapper generations annoying her!

======================

[malthaussen]

87. Long-term series authors have a similar problem...

... a protagonist originating in the mid-80s, say, would now be old enough for retirement, and her grandmother would have worn miniskirts and go-go boots. But since the author was born in 1950, they are depicted straight out of Beaver.

-- Mal

[Beartracks]

149. Exactly. n/t

[tymorial]

6. I doubt this happened but I appreciate the message

I will now sit back and watch the misdirection, strawman, ad hominim attacks that will be presented to reconcile cognitive dissonance.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Sounds like someone's lawn needs a getting off of.

[FailureToCommunicate]

20. Proper grammer, please, young man: we do not end a sentence with a preposition.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

26. Stuff it, old man!

[Beartracks]

54. Do NOT end a sentence where the preposition is at!

========================

[spooky3]

71. LOL!

[oberliner]

8. This goes back to at least 2011

Posted on DU a couple of times in 2013.

[brettdale]

11. Back then

Back then If a Black person was at the front of a bus, they better give up their seat for a white person.

Back then, we were told, if we hid under a desk during a Nuclear explosion we would be okay.

Back then Gay people were thrown in jail.

etc etc etc etc.

[JDPriestly]

18. Also true.

[robbob]

109. None of which has anything to do with the environment...

Sorry,I couldn't resist, but your point has been raised several times in this thread (i.e. "The good old days weren't so good because...&quot , but the point of the anecdote is environmental issues and whether we are really so "green" now with our disposable goods society. How many computers and printers have I thrown away since 1980?

Anyway, just a couple points: assuming this is even a real story (which I doubt): that cashier should be fired. Directing rants at older customers for "ruining the world" is not part of her job description. Maybe something more along the lines of "We have these beautiful reusable bags for only 50 cents each right here: i find them very handy...", delivered with a big smile. Flies, honey, etc. etc.

Point 2: every generation feels some hostility towards their elders for "ruining the world", or whatever. Only time will tell if the current generation actually goes forward with their ideals and helps change the world for the better, or if the majority of them will be co-opted by the system and end up being accused by the generation after the next of also "ruining the world".

As I recall, issues about the "environment" weren't even in the public consciousness until the early 70's. I seem to remember a group referred to as "hippies"? Who were a big part of bringing this issue to light with that whole "back to the land", "respect Mother Earth" type lingo?

Human consciousness is evolving, and each generation has a part to play. I don't think that part should involve pointing fingers at the older generation as if they were one monolithic block who can be blamed for all the problems of the day.

[Blue_In_AK]

13. As an official "old person,"

I find these kinds of things silly. "Back in MY day..." Pfffttt.

[retrowire]

19. i was digging it until "tatooed, multiple piercing smartass"

I have no piercings or tattoos. But anyone that uses appearances as a derogatory piece of ammo can go fuck themselves. We all look different and I thank god for that.

[zentrum]

21. Very interesting.

[Locrian]

22. mixed bag

"Back then" you dumped your used oil in the ground, sprayed DDT to get rid of bugs, smoked (unfiltered thank you) cigarettes, leaded gas, etc etc. Rivers were so polluted they caught on fire, and if you ever had a work complaint for conditions you were being a wimp.

Businesses were also "busy" manufacturing desire for all those wonderful conveniences to replace all those "non green" green things. Every one of the items she cites was displaced by marketing. And people flocked to them (as today with all the electronics).


Always a mixed bag. People are no more inherently righteous, they just behave pretty much the same given the circumstances. It's just who winds up paying the bill.

[Boomerproud]

34. Yep. As Bill Maher would say (paraphrasing)

"What has changed? We're still the going-to-the mall-in our cars, Kentucky Fried Chicken eating morons we've always been."

[Locrian]

39. same as it ever was....

[Duppers]

63. Zactly!

Sick of any HolierThanThou stuff.

[malthaussen]

89. Rivers on fire?

plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

-- Mal

[Fuddnik]

176. I used to work next to the one in Cleveland that caught on fire.

The good ole' Cuyahoga.

But to even things out, we had a Mayor (repub) who set his hair on fire with a welding torch next to it. And his wife couldn't be bothered to meet with First Lady Pat Nixon, because it was her bowling night.

[malthaussen]

189. My hair got set on fire by a propane torch.

Stupid fool left the damned thing on and left the work station. Propane torches are basically invisible, so when I had to do some work at the same bench, I leaned right into the flame. Fortunately, my hair is pretty oily, so it just smoldered and stunk up the joint. Left a little bit of a burn on the side of my head.

-- Mal

[AngryAmish]

24. Oh the epic onions they had on their belts....

[tom_kelly]

25. This is the first time I've seen this

and I enjoyed it. I remember the manual mowers with the turning blades in the front. In the mid-70's my father bought a motorized one that was probably from the 50's. It had a real wide cut, cut real low, and I LOVED cutting the lawn with it as a kid. Also have great summer memories of being out of the house by 9am to play stick-ball all day. Stopping only to wait for cars or your turn to drink from the hose. In the fall we'd play football every day after school. In the winter we'd build snow forts, "bomb" cars with snowballs and sled/mini-ski down the biggest hill in town. Despite our complaints to parents about there being "nothing to do" we stayed quite busy and had a blast!

[Mnpaul]

27. I just saw another bad green story on the news

A company just cut down 1000 trees to build a solar array.

[truedelphi]

129. Yikes!

Around five years ago, I started noticing these articles about these monstrosities made out of metal that had been "scientifically proven" to be better at carbon absorption than trees. Plus none of that messy roadside littering of leaves in the fall!

On some highways in England they have already set these things out. Cutting down trees to make room for them.

When I read thing like that, I get all, "Please Lord, just take me now. I have been here too long."

[kentauros]

137. They did that to save the trees.

Because solar panels steal sunlight and kill all the plants around them. So, they killed the plants first in order to save them.

[SheilaT]

30. I agree that this is typical internet bullshit.

Elevators have been around well over a hundred years, and other than in NYC where 5 or 8 story walk-ups are apparently common, not many buildings over 4 floors are without elevators.

Even fifty or sixty years ago not very many jobs involved a lot of manual labor, and women were "protected" from a lot of these by discriminatory laws and regulations.

I started grade school in 1955, and by the time I was using a pen in fourth grade or so, NO ONE was using a fountain pen any more. By the mid-1950's street cars and trolley lines were being torn out in most cities, forcing people into cars. Kids could ride their bikes to school so long as school wasn't more than a mile or so away. I attended a rural central school in Northern New York State. I don't think it would be practical to ride a bike thirty or more miles to school each day.

A lot of schools were segregated, and everyone understood that "separate but equal" was total hogwash. Women often were denied jobs just because they were female, and would someday get married and get pregnant. As if all men stayed in their jobs from the day of hire to retirement some forty years later.

I really get tired of this sort of crap that implies people were somehow better back then, because they weren't. They were just as much a mix of good and bad as they are now.

[braddy]

32. I never had a key to the Houston home I grew up in, and many of us left the keys in our cars and our

bicycles out in the unfenced yard and our house windows fully open day and night.

Everyone kept their best guns in a nice cabinet on display in the living room, with the windows wide open and those unlocked doors, even when no one was at home.

Kids spent their days outdoors and only came in at night, and we loved chasing the DDT trucks on foot or on bike and hiding in the smoke they put out, running full speed and breathing deep gulps of the "smoke", we hated the Houston mosquitoes, and loved that spraying.

[Lordquinton]

41. And then they ruined the economy

[Dont call me Shirley]

124. And they destroyed our ecosystem.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

42. Reusing is not recycling. It is better than recycling. . . . nt

[Brickbat]

43. This is not a rant on PC. It has nothing to do with "PC." It's simply glurge meant to divide people.

[raging moderate]

45. What if we could think about it and keep the best of all times/places?

Different people in different places at different times have had good ideas for reasonable living. We could sort of work out some combinations. Life really was more careful and frugal when I was a child, back in the fifties. What this post says is basically close to what I remember. Maybe we could go back and pick up some customs that would work today. We had three changes of clothing: one to be wearing, one to be drying, and one to be waiting in the wash. You can wash many garments in the tub and dry them over the tub overnight. Or lay them on radiators, with a towel under them to prevent rust spots. Food was more basic, and there was less of it. We mostly ate our meals at home. Push mowers really were not that difficult, if they were in good condition. There were only a few air conditioners, in some businesses; trees did a lot to keep us cool (or we sweated, and so what? it's only natural). And people did not walk down the street eating or drinking, not even water; they were all right without those water bottles. Some things are improving, although not fast enough in the social justice area. I am glad that Black people no longer are forced to stand or sit only in the back of the bus (by the way, they already had it better than that where I lived in Chicago). And my family knew several gay people, and they were all right. One of my grandmothers briefly married an old friend who was gay, perhaps to combine expenses. Some people did their best to work quietly against the stupid racists and bigots, with these old phrases: Mind your own business. It's a free country. I do think we could all learn some new ways to conserve our resources and not use more than our fair share of them. Of course we need to remember to be tolerant of each other, as we all struggle to do our best to be responsible citizens.

[dixiegrrrrl]

58. What cheers me up is all the groups I see on the internet who resurrecting the best of the past.

Real food, for instance.
Emphasis on buying lccally and in season.
Smaller houses, ways to make what we called a smaller footprint on the earth, etc.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

49. so many stupid stereotypes in one post.

[blackspade]

50. This is gibberish

A mish-mash of anachronisms to make a strawman point.

[Cassiopeia]

51. I seem to remember hearing about trucks driving down the roads

spraying DDT all over the place with groups of children running behind them to get covered in the stuff.

Yeah, some things were reused, but it wasn't green by any stretch of the imagination.

[Mister Ed]

57. My buddies and I actually did chase the mosquito-spray truck on our bikes.

It was a flatbed truck, and the guy on the back had a big pivoting spray gun on a stand, just like the gun mounts on an Army vehicle. He'd point it this way and that, spraying clouds of insecticide onto the lawns on either side of the street as the truck rolled along.

We figured we were safe, because we had taken the precaution of pulling up our T-shirts to cover our noses and mouths.

Were those the days, or what?

[Fuddnik]

177. Hell, we didn't even have mosquitos back in my day.

Damn, new- fangled stuff!

[Mnpaul]

64. I remember getting doused with Roundup

from a reckless helicopter pilot spraying the crap in 30 mph winds(in the 90's). He also dosed our organic garden. Nothing has changed.

[MisterP]

65. it was in "Plutopia" about Hanford up in WA: evidently it tasted fun

[hunter]

59. Free plastic bags are illegal in my community and our WalMart ran out of the 10 cent paper bags...

... this morning. And all the 99 cent reusable bags were sold out too.

That did not make my life suck.

[BlueStater]

60. Don't worry.

Thanks to the two violent, failed wars that was conceived by a Boomer president, approved by a mostly Boomer Congress, and supported primarily by Boomer citizens, there's now a lot less of those annoying young people in the country for them to deal with.

[Dont call me Shirley]

127. Many of us boomers are vehemently anti-war pacifists!

[alarimer]

73. What does this have to do with PC?

"PC" is just right-wing for "I want to use the n-word with no consequences".

The old days weren't great for everyone. My grandmother's brother died from an easily treatable infection when he was 3, for example. This was the 1920's, so it was before antibiotics were widely available. If you were a woman then, you had few options for career, if any. Jackie Robinson in 1947 couldn't stay in the same hotels his team stayed in. Etc. Etc. And of course, DDT and the "silent spring" engendered by that. Awareness of environmental issues is certainly a positive development, even though it is so depressing.

I do agree with the TV everywhere thing though. Why are there so many TVs in restaurants, for instance? It's pretty annoying.

And then, there's the whole "green" thing. Yes, people used to return milk bottles for reuse. Then plastics became ubiquitous, but it's not the tattooed clerk's fault. That happened long before. "Planned obsolescence" was a thing for decades, where companies deliberately wanted to shorten the life span of products so you'd have to buy another one. Apple does the same thing now (along with every other gadget maker), making incremental changes so you are enticed to buy a new one. This is truly a reprehensible development, for sure.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

80. I hate people who use pc as though we are supposed to welcom

Open bigotry.

It's really part of why I detest bill maher

[cheapdate]

157. Good question.

The piece is about living in a way that's not as flagrantly, outrageously, wasteful of energy and resources.

[benld74]

74. Business decided to make $$$

On all the items which were 'recycled'. Bottles, razors, etc
Tech allowed them to make 'new' items cheaper which could be tossed. People tried, liked, and history.
There will always be someone who finds means to make things cheaper, more $$$, padding bottom line,
Will not end

[ieoeja]

76. Not only a load of shit. But you are posting bigoted shit as well.

Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass

Guess what? That is some seriously bigoted shit. Proud of yourself?



Most people did not return their bottles. They threw them out the windows of their cars on the sides of the roads.

I hate nostalgic bullshit that glosses over what life was really like. I remember when the roadways looked like a garbage dump. The fucking river in Cleveland caught on fire!

Twice.


Nor do I appreciate my parents spanking me when I was a kid. Because they only once spanked me for willful disobediance (for which he later admitted I did the right thing). All the other times times it was either because I made a mistake or for something for which I was innocent. Neither of which should be punished at all. Much less by violence.

Give me some more stupid nostalgic shit, and I will happily correct the record for you.

[Codeine]

77. The kind of crap people's fathers forward to everyone on their email list.

"The important thing is that I had an onion on my belt, as was the fashion of the time. . ."

[TacoD]

78. Surprised this has so many recs. DU demographics must trend older than I thought (nt)

[No Vested Interest]

102. We oldies have a lot of time on our hands to post comments. nt

[Hissyspit]

126. That's no excuse, anyway.

[malthaussen]

79. I used Bics, myself.

Even at a tender age, I wondered if there was wisdom behind making disposable pens. But they were only 19 cents...

The young cashierist was demonstrating a lack of wisdom. But I suggest that the author of the piece reflect on the fact that it was our generation who invented all those labor-saving and convenience items that we didn't use when we were children because they didn't yet exist. So ultimately the young lady makes a valid point, while the elder attempts to make a virtue of necessity.

I'm reminded of the bit in The Graduate where the protagonist is advised to get into plastics, as they are the wave of the future.

-- Mal

[BrainDrain]

81. ABSO-FUCKIN-LUTELY!!!!!

You got that one dead on my friend!!!!

[Kokonoe]

83. That's my parents generation from 75 years ago.

That smart ass young person exactly right.
We thought you just throw all the garbage out your car window and it was gone.
Lets not take credit for what young progressives are doing.

[DinahMoeHum]

90. Can you get the Facebook link to his? Thanks.

n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

96. Sorry...did not keep the link.........n/t

[No Vested Interest]

103. It's been around for awhile. You can probably

google it.

[Act_of_Reparation]

94. Christ, this ageist bullshit again?

Yes, the world was a fucking utopia before these millennials came along and ruined everything. Everything was reused, reduced, or recycled, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry could perform complex arithmetic quickly and accurately in their fucking heads. How wonderful it all was! And now everything is shit, with the hippity-hop music and the tattoos and the piercings. It's all gone to hell!

It's the same insipid shit with each successive generation. The word is terrible and it is young people's fault. Yes, young people. People without money or political power somehow managed to fuck things up so profoundly.

Fuck this noise.

[Bradical79]

98. More of a half truth, imo, and nothing to do with "PC"

While having many reusables was pretty good, the stage was also being set for massive future enviromental damage. Also, being environmentally friendly in 1950 doesn't give credit to be environmentally destructive in 2016. It doesn't work like that, lol.

[Fast Walker 52]

100. I agree. There is some truth to it, and the greedy assholes always ruin everything

[Politicub]

104. Then uppity gays showed up and ruined this exquisite utopia

Or us f*gs, if the word gay is too PC.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

105. A mixed bag. My car got about 12 mpg, and rusted through in about five years.

We didn't waste electricity on air conditioning, we opened windows and prayed for a breeze.
We heated the house with coal, and hauled ashes to the alley every morning. Black soot was all over town.

Was it better then? On the whole, I think we're better off now.

[dixiegrrrrl]

107. I grew up mostly rural, never quite enough money,

we lived much like my Grandmother did, she fed 8 kids on a small 5 acre place with one cow, some chickens, homemade almost everything, during the Depression, so my Mom was of the "Greatest" Generation and I fall in the "early" boomer charts.
Kids having to work after age 12 to help with clothes expenses, do a lot of housework and chores, and etc. was a natural thing.
I didn't mind, cause we were used to it.

Did what most Boomers did....married, 2 kids, better life, tv followed by color tv, all the versions of music players, better and cheaper medical
( this was before insurance came along and made it so expensive)

But ya know what? the one thing that makes today better, IMHO....computers.
Changed my entire life, such a boon to those of us who live rural lives.
Booted the tv years ago, but absolutely count on computers for important information, for connections to friends and family, etc.

When I think what we could have done with today's computers when I was growing up.........

[elljay]

106. Mom not only saved paper bags

but jars (no plastic storage containers), rubber bands, string and twist ties. She still does and so do I. The jobs kids did for pocket money (delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, babysitting) are now done by adults. I don't know any kids now who have after school jobs. We knew all the kids in the neighborhood and actually talked to them. Today, my daughter's biggest complaint about her schoolmates is that they can't seem to be with another kid for more than a few minutes before they whip out the phones and start ignoring each other. No, the 60s weren't perfect, but now that I look back, it is clear that we did quite a lot right.

[braddy]

108. "The fable of the burning river, 45 years later" Since we have been conditioned to hate the past

this thread keeps mentioning the burning rivers of the 1960s America.

Here is some history on that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/22/the-fable-of-the-burning-river-45-years-later/

[dixiegrrrrl]

110. I am not aware of being conditioned to hate the past. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

112. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

[dixiegrrrrl]

113. That gave me a huge smile.

[passiveporcupine]

115. I'm old enough to know

what a damned excellent rant this is!



Now I will admit that growing up in the country makes a difference. Growing up in a city or metro area, I'm not sure you learn anything about recycling, or using your energy or matierials wisely.

[dixiegrrrrl]

117. yeah, I was wondering, as I read all the negative reactions,

if there might not be a city mouse/country mouse divide.

[houston16revival]

116. I'm maybe 1/4 way back to that lifestyle

and I have more time and resources to do what I want

I don't want to fill my home with trinket capitalism's junk

and say "what am I going to DO with this stuff" when I'm old

[Dont call me Shirley]

119. I lived ALL those "green things" on the list. And still try to do many of them and more! Too bad

my kids never wanted to learn how to be green from me.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

[Hissyspit]

125. Why does this crap have so many recs?

[Warren DeMontague]

154. Because this place is usually extra cranky around 5 pm

Dinner is at 5:30, that calms it down

[oberliner]

181. Ageist much?

Jeez.

[Warren DeMontague]

182. Fuck, I remember Watergate, and every week someone here tells me to get off their proverbial lawn.

(And I can hear it right now: "Remember watergate? Watergate was last week!!!!!!!!!!!!!&quot


It gets old, because it is old. I call em like I see em.

[Scootaloo]

128. Also found on Facebook:

[LeftyMom]

140. Wasn't that the plot of the latest Kirk Cameron movie?

Well, there was a subplot about how Jesus taught his wife to smile placidly and make sandwiches.

[Hissyspit]

162. LOL

[Heidi]

188. !!!!!

[thucythucy]

131. I generally don't weigh in on the inter-generational thing

but I must admit sometimes "the new normal" has me perplexed and bothered.

For instance, today I was walking (yes walking) to the supermarket. I passed a relatively young man on his front lawn hanging with his little boy. Nice scene. Then the guy reaches for something behind a tree. It was a gasoline powered leaf blower. He yanks the cord, the thing sputters and starts--HUGE noise, fumes, etc. The kid, who was only a few feet away from this, starts crying. The guy, seeing this, screams "DADDY HAS TO CLEAN THE SIDEWALK!" About fifteen or twenty feet of sidewalk, maybe a foot or so wide, and he needs a gasoline powered leaf blower to push some dust and debris off to one side.

I wanted to say to the guy, "Couldn't you just as easily use a broom?" but didn't want to get anywhere near all that noise (besides which, I'm kind of shy). But I felt sorry for the little kid. He'll probably be hearing impaired by the time he's ten. Not to mention, he's growing up in a world where a leaf blower is seen as a reasonable substitute for a broom.

Ah well, end of rant. Now all you kids, get off my lawn!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

142. ahhh...leaf blowers....our 80 year old neighbor uses one on her deck, the sound really carries.

We have someone cut our grass because of the slopes on both sides of the house, too steep for a lawnmower, needs a weed cutter.
For a year or so, the guy who did it used the broom to sweep the blown grass off the patios around the house. Just swept the trimmings into the grass area, no problem. Total area to be swept maybe 8 by 20.
He quit showing up, no explanation, but luckily the kid next door is now 16 and was looking for odd jobs.
Good kid, smart, polite, works fast.
Uses an Mp3 player, with ear buds, and happily weed whacks away, pretty fast, too.
At the end of the first cutting, I told him I would get him the broom.
Nope...he says he uses the leaf blower.
He musta seen my face fall, cause he did use the broom. bless him.

[thucythucy]

151. I ALWAYS thank people

when I see them using a rake or a broom. "Thank you for NOT using a leaf blower." Thus far everyone is, at first, surprised, but then they understand without my having to say anything else.

To me leaf blowers are perfect symbols of petroleum decadence. Blowing all those fumes, and making all that noise, in some cases simply to blow some dirt off a driveway. Centuries from now people will be aghast at our wastefulness.

[kentauros]

173. My two biggest complaints for leaf blowers are

1. Noise. So ridiculously loud, because it's both the noise of the engine and the noise of the blower.

2. All debris is blown into the street. Never-mind that it all goes down the storm drains and is a prime source of clogging, and then street-flooding. "Who cares? We don't live here! We're just hired to make the lawn look neat and clean!"

[craigmatic]

134. The glaring fault in all this is that all the new things the old person laments were invented by old

people from the 1960's forward.

[kentauros]

138. I'm sure this has been done before, but I just -had- to take it apart :)

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

That's called "re-using" not recycling. Recycling would have been if they took the glass bottles, crushed them, and turned them back into bottles again. Takes more energy, but glass always recycles back into glass of the same quality.

Also, millions continued to toss those "reusable" bottles onto the side of the road because they were lazy litterbug consumers.

The reason manufacturing switched to plastic bottles was a decision based on energy use. Energy to ship glass bottles of product to the store, energy to ship the empty bottles back to the bottling company, energy to wash them. Plus, glass bottles are thicker than plastic. You can get that many more bottles onto a truck with plastic bottles than you can with glass. Plastic bottles won't break in shipping. People don't take the chance of swallowing tiny glass shards when drinking due to a faulty bottling machine. (While that can still happen today, the bottling machines are also more sophisticated than they were back then, i.e., computerized and safer.)

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

You had to cut down more and more trees to make those paper bags, from a paper-industry that had no environmental controls on it like today. Schoolbooks are finally going digital, which saves even more trees. At least until we can kill those laws against the growing of hemp as put in place back then.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

You had elevators, so I don't think anyone was climbing the stairs of the Empire State Building willingly. Escalators were in all of the department stores. So I don't know where that comment comes from.

Department stores/shopping

As noted above, a few escalator types were installed in major department stores (including Harrods) before the Expo. Escalators proved instrumental in the layout and design of shopping venues in the twentieth century.

By 1898, the first of Reno’s "inclined elevators" were incorporated into the Bloomingdale Bros. store at Third Avenue and 59th Street. This was the first retail application of the devices in the US, and no small coincidence, considering that Reno's primary financier was Lyman Bloomingdale, co-owner of the department store with brother Joseph Bloomingdale.

And people did get into their big, massive cars to go a few blocks. Because they wanted to show off that they could afford a big, massive car.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

(You burn up wattage, not volts.)
You can blame HOAs for many people not being able to use laundry lines. All too often run by people for whom aesthetics is more important than practicality. And I can't name how many times it was an older person who was so concerned about how things looked.

Electric power companies burned oil and coal. No environmental controls. Soot, NOX, CO, CO2 belching out and everywhere.

The American textile industry decided that they could make more money and offer more clothing choices by moving their factories to poorer countries. Clothing-thrift stores subsequently popped up everywhere, and filled with all of the now "hand-me-downs" due to the prevalence of the offshore textile manufacturers.

Not everyone today has decided that having a family is the only way to live, so no diapers to wash, either. But, disposable diapers were most likely invented by an entrepreneurial American, and creating the American Dream for themselves as they became multi-millionaires. Their product was heavily marketed as a wife's very dream of convenience and sanitation. Why would anyone say things were better before that? What is you, a Commonist?

Disposable

The first disposable diaper was invented and patented in 1948[16] by Valerie Hunter Gordon (née de Ferranti),[17] granddaughter of inventor Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti.

(Okay, it looks like the inventor was British, not American as I suggested. Americans did seem to embrace them, though...)

Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

Once TVs became more popular, you better believe people started buying more for their homes. Just as they did with radios. Plus, buying more is good for American business.

Television Sets - History
Television usage in the western world skyrocketed after World War II with the lifting of the manufacturing freeze, war-related technological advances, the drop in television prices caused by mass production, increased leisure time, and additional disposable income. While only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television in 1946, 55.7% had one in 1954, and 90% by 1962. In Britain, there were 15,000 television households in 1947, 1.4 million in 1952, and 15.1 million by 1968. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, color television had come into wide use. In Britain, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV were regularly broadcasting in colour by 1969.

In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.

Only if you didn't have electricity.

Electric Mixer - History
In 1908 Herbert Johnson, an engineer for the Hobart Manufacturing Company, invented an electric standing mixer. His inspiration came from observing a baker mixing bread dough with a metal spoon; soon he was toying with a mechanical counterpart. By 1915, his 20 gallon (80 l) mixer was standard equipment for most large bakeries. In 1919, Hobart introduced the Kitchen Aid Food Preparer (stand mixer) for the home.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

How often did things arrive in one piece?

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.

I suppose that was true at the turn of the 20th century. But, once powered mowers were invented, they became quite popular:

Powered Mowers - Further Improvements
In the United States, gasoline powered lawn mowers were first manufactured in 1914 by Ideal Power Mower Co. of Lansing, Michigan, based on a patent by Ransom E. Olds. Ideal Power Mower also introduced the world's first self-propelled, riding lawn tractor in 1922, known as the "Triplex." The roller-drive lawn mower has changed very little since around 1930. Gang mowers, those with multiple sets of blades to cut a wider swath, were built in the United States in 1919 by the Worthington Mower Company.

In the 1920s one of the most successful companies to emerge during this period was Atco, at that time a brand name of Charles H Pugh Ltd. The Atco motor mower, launched in 1921 was an immediate success. Just 900 of the 22-inch-cut machines were made in 1921, each costing £75. Within five years, annual production had accelerated to tens of thousands. Prices were reduced and a range of sizes was available, making the Standard the first truly mass-produced engine-powered mower.

We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

I'll give them that. And yet, everything about American living back then was to push the envelop on convenience. As it still is today.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

Water that was delivered through lead pipes, or copper pipes connected by lead solder. Not to mention no water-pollution controls. Arsenic, anyone?

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen

Such pens were notorious for leaking. How many shirts were ruined by them?

and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

And what, exactly, happened to the razor that was "replaced"?

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did.

At least, they did until GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil conspired by buying up all of those streetcar lines and ripped the tracks out. Can't have people doing the "green thing" when they should be driving cars and consuming like good Americans.

There were also far fewer people in the country back then. Schools were smaller and closer to where people lived. People weren't scared into becoming helicopter parents by the media.

And you can't buy a house for 45k these days. Comparing numbers like that just doesn't work.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.

And houses burned down because people tried to put as many devices into one socket as they could, with the help of plug-in socket expanders.

And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

You didn't have satellites. So, no advanced warning for hurricanes or heatwaves, either.
Also, how come I see plenty of older people with those same gadgets in their hands, also looking for the nearest burger joint? Convenience, maybe?

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

You were wasteful. You polluted the landscape like no other before or since. We had to enact things like the Clean Water Act, and the Clear Air Act to get industry to at least attempt to behave. Yet, it wasn't enough. Now we have too many people, and even with all of the pollution controls in place (when they're allowed to work) we still produce too much pollution.

I believe this is more like a conservative anti-green manifesto than a proponent for old ways of green living. This is the kind of thing sent to other conservatives to justify their refusal to be green today. They've already done the green thing. Why should they do it now?

[braddy]

145. Your post is too long to respond to all of it, but any coke bottles thrown out of a car were very

much sought after, they didn't just lay there forever, and do you really want to berate an old woman for plumbing technology? While almost all of the galvanized water pipes have been replaced because they get a flow restricting build up inside, over a half century or so, many or most of us still have copper with leaded solder joints, it isn't like replaced our good copper pipes.

One of the greatest wastes that I ever saw, was the attempt to instantly replace our toilets with toilets that didn't work, it was a massive cost in money and landfill waste.

Plumbers went from repairing 50 and 70 year old toilets, to replacing toilets that were only months old, because they just didn't work.

[kentauros]

147. Berate an old woman?

No, I'm criticizing something that was likely written by someone younger and anti-green. Doesn't matter that some people did green things "back then." Most people didn't, and why I made my post.

And it's not that long. I broke it up, in a standard point-by-point format. It's easy to read, if you try

[braddy]

148. Not too long to read, just too much to respond to, for instance you ignored my post anyway.

[kentauros]

164. I ignored it because I already addressed the topic sufficiently.

n/t

[braddy]

165. LOl, you ignored my response to your post.

[kentauros]

166. I asked you to read my post again.

What you singled out was sufficiently addressed in my original post. What you posted was irrelevant to the post I had made. Thus, ignoring it. Still

[braddy]

167. Well, I won't waste time playing games and exchanges about nothing, that only waste time.

[kentauros]

168. Fine with me.

Don't want to waste your time on a message board...

[braddy]

169. LOL, sure, it was me who was non responsive.

[kentauros]

170. No, you brought up an irrelevant complaint about toilets

when I was talking about potable water being delivered in lead pipes because there were no laws against that "back then." Flint, Michigan is in dire straights these days because potable water is being delivered in lead pipes. Water that is too contaminated to drink (wouldn't want to bathe in it either as the skin does absorb such toxins, too.)

No Clean Water Act "back then" and no laws against lead pipes for potable water. None of which has anything to do with inferior toilets.

[braddy]

171. We still have legal lead pipes, that wasn't the issue in Flint, and I don't know why changing

technologies figure into this thread anyway.

[kentauros]

172. They figure into it due to what was presented in the OP.

Read my point-by-point addressing of it and hopefully you'll see why. I'm also not the only person on this thread pointing out the fallacies of the "old woman's" points. Plenty more have mentioned technological advances that were actively embraced by people "back then" and thus defeat the "old woman's" ideas about what life supposedly was like "back then."

[braddy]

174. What happened in Flint was caused by not properly treating the water, as far as technology, when

something is invented, or available to the wealthy, is not necessarily when it became common, many of us who never saw a microwave oven until the late 1970s or the 1980s (by 1986 25% of homes had one) are shocked when we learn that they were on the consumer market since 1947.

[kentauros]

175. **sigh**

Honestly, I can't explain my original reply in any terms other than the concise, to-the-point, and simple manner in which I originally presented it. I can't do your reading for you. So again, please, re-read my original reply to this thread, no skimming, no skipping, no tl;dr (too long; didn't read) manner as it appears to have caused you to latch onto me this way. I'm not a grade-school teacher. My patience is limited.

[a la izquierda]

139. Wow. That was...something.

Nothing like a little generational conflict in the morning.
I'm not sure what this has to do with being PC.

-signed, tattooed pierced smartass (and professor)

[TheManInTheMac]

141. "Shut up and bag my groceries" usually works just as well.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

143. Could you give me the name of your manager works too

[SickOfTheOnePct]

160. Yep n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

153. yes, but you also used a gas mower to cut your own lawn

The same one you are telling these kids to get off of

[dixiegrrrrl]

178. 2 things

I am not telling off anyone, I did not write this, I posted it out of interest, and it sure has created interest.....
I consider it a Rorschach test of sorts, something people projected not only their opinions but their feelings into.

and I did not ever use a gas mower.
The one and only time I needed a mower, from 1994 to 1999, I got an electric one, with a battery.

[Warren DeMontague]

179. It was a joke. Hey, you know your audience. This place will eat that sort of thing up.

Goes over great with the aol.com email address, "mentalist"-watching crowd, know what I mean?

The Denny's Discount bunch.

"I just spent the last 16 hours cherry-picking Friars Roasts for the premium old-man jokes. Essentially, I’m going to beat him to death with his own titanium hips."





...The battery operated mowers are much better, now, by the way. I think I have a Black & Decker, works great.

I used to have one with an extension cord, which was sort of a pain in the ass to make sure it didn't get run over; and in the process electrocute my old ass.

[dixiegrrrrl]

180. People do tend to underestimate me....

still have that electric mower, btw...but now we live where all the grass is on slopes too steep to use it.

[cheapdate]

155. Bravo!

[SickOfTheOnePct]

159. I guess my only thought is

that the cashier isn't being paid to lecture customers.

And I agree 100% with the statement that in general, cashiers don't know how to make change without the screen telling them how much. Hand them 3 pennies for the $8.38 order after they've already punched in $20.00 for the bill you gave them, and half them are totally confused as to what to do and how much change to give back.

[Warren DeMontague]

183. The only thing realistic about this story is the part about the old person holding up the line

at the supermarket.

[Zorra]

186. Towanda

[dixiegrrrrl]

187. Ahh.........good time, good times.

One of my favorite all time movies, I watch it every few years now.

Towanda indeed.